The Egyptian ministre of affaires étrangères a declaration that des pour parlers avec la Turquie sur la possibilité de rétablir les relations au niveau des ambassadeurs auraient lieu à un “moment approprié” lors de la premiere visite au Caire du plus haut diplomate turc depuis la rupture des relations There are ten years.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu said at a joint press conference on Saturday that Turkey will upgrade its diplomatic relations with Egypt to ambassadorial level “as soon as possible.”
“I am very happy that we are taking concrete steps to normalize relations with Egypt… and we will do our best not to sever our relations again in the future,” Cavusoglu said.
“We will come to the talks (on the return of the ambassadors) at the right time, depending on the positive results they achieve,” Shoukry said.
Relations between Turkey and Egypt were seriously strained after then-Egyptian army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi led the overthrow of Ankara’s Muslim Brotherhood ally Mohamed Morsi in 2013. Sisi was elected president the following year.
The two countries have also fallen out in recent years over Libya, backing rival factions in an unresolved conflict, as well as maritime borders in the gas-rich eastern Mediterranean.
Cavusoglu said on Saturday that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Sisi will meet “after the Turkish elections,” including the presidential elections scheduled for May 14, marking the end of a decade of estrangement between the two countries.
Diplomatic relations ‘remain weak’
Al-Jazeera correspondent Rasul Sardar said from Istanbul that two closely related issues still need to be resolved in the Egyptian-Turkish relations.
“There is a promise of restoring relations, but relations at the diplomatic level are still very weak,” Sardar said, noting that the two countries’ opposing positions on Libya and the eastern Mediterranean are the main points of contention.
Turkey and Egypt support different camps. Turkey supports the internationally recognized government based in Tripoli [in Libya] While Egypt supports Benghazi and Khalifa Haftar and his army there.
Libya has seen little peace since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi and split in 2014 between rival eastern and western factions, drawing in regional powers.
“In 2019, the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum was formed…but Turkey was deliberately excluded. In response, Turkey signed a maritime agreement with the government in Tripoli.
Consultations between senior State Department officials began in Ankara and Cairo in 2021 as part of a Turkish effort to ease tensions with Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
As part of this first reconciliation, Ankara asked Egyptian opposition TV channels operating in Turkey to tone down their criticism of Egypt.
Morsi died in prison in Egypt in 2019. Other prominent members of the Muslim Brotherhood have been imprisoned in Egypt or fled abroad, and the group remains banned.
Last month, Shoukry traveled to Turkey to show solidarity after massive earthquakes killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria.
The Egyptian government, which is struggling to manage an acute shortage of foreign currency, said Turkish companies have allocated $500 million for new investments in Egypt.
